MIND That Eagles Can Fly
by ShurtugalSkulblaka
Summary: Elaina has a past that attracted SHIELD's attention, but she didn't know why. After the turmoil in Manhattan she found her true purpose as SHIELD receives a mission that needs her to operate it. She is the key to success in this mission. Will she prove to SHIELD and the Avengers that they made the right choice to have her? She sure hopes so...
1. And They Thought It Was Over

**Trying not to butcher such a great movie/ series...**

**Chapter One-And They Thought It Was Over**

"Do you have a death wish, Tony?" a man with short brown hair and blue eyes said.

A girl with long brown hair and sparkling green eyes was glaring at the taller man the question had been directed at.

"After recent events, I'd prefer not to die in the way you're thinking, Barton," the taller man, Tony, said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I mean, Clint. You know, one of you should really change your name so we stop having this issue," Tony corrected himself.

"Shut up, Stark, neither of us are going to change our name," the girl said.

"Tony, I'd leave her alone," the other man, Clint, said.

"Really? What is it with assassins and being left alone?"

"People who like to be alone like being around other people who like being alone, get it?" the girl asked. "Now leave me alone before I set Natasha on you. Go do your little science things with Banner that you two enjoy so much."

"Whatever, you guys aren't any fun anyway," Tony said walking down the metal platform on the flying aircraft carrier dubbed the "Helicarrier."

Elaina had been recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D a few weeks before most of Manhattan, her home, had been blown to bits by hostiles from another world. The Avengers Initiative had been activated and basically the world's superheroes had been pulled together to battle the forces of evil. The Avengers had saved the world once, but from what Elaina had seen it'd taken some work to get them together. She felt out of place as being the one of the newest members of S.H.I.E.L.D, but everyone had accepted her with open arms. The Avengers had been particularly interested in her past work, or at least a few of them had.

"Thanks again, Clint," she told him.

"Sometimes Stark is the best person to be around, other times he's the worst," Clint said.

Elaina smiled at him as he turned around and walked up the stairs next to them. She knew where he was going and where she could find him almost all the time, but she didn't follow him, he need his isolation just as she needed hers. She felt awkward toward Clint, maybe it was because of the first day. Nick Fury, the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D, had called on "Agent Barton" to report to him, that's when Clint and Elaina had first met, they both had reported to Fury. Elaina had thought there was a mistake, but sure enough, Clint Barton had showed and so had she, Elaina Barton. They weren't related as far as Elaina knew, it was just an odd coincidence, she'd thought Barton was a pretty uncommon surname...apparently not. This was probably also why Elaina had gotten to know Clint, they'd gotten along pretty well from the start. Both shared common interests, certain fighting methods, and most importantly both mostly preferred to be left alone.

She made her way to her room in the Helicarrier, Elaina decided she wanted some time to herself after her encounter with Tony. She liked Tony Stark, but sometimes he annoyed her beyond the point of ridiculousness, he just didn't know when to step away. Natasha was the only female in the Avengers group and also one of the ones interested in Elaina's past. Natasha herself was a Russian spy and an expert assassin which made Elaina understand why Natasha had taken interest in her past. Elaina then walked past a taller man with his short blond hair swept sideways, he was much taller and more muscular than the others.

"Hello, Captain Rogers," Elaina said smiling at him.

He returned her smile, flashing bright white teeth, "Good day, Miss. Barton," he said back continuing walking.

Elaina liked Captain Steve Rogers, she was particularly fond of his 1940's attitude, he was a living legend so to speak. After taking out a Nazi force called HYDRA during World War II he put a jet programmed by HYDRA to destroy cities in the U.S into the ice of Antarctica. He'd been frozen in the ice for seventy years, but he'd still been alive. After he'd woken up in the twenty-first century Fury had recruited him for the Avengers Initiative. He was very brave, putting others before himself and he always went by his values, this is also why Elaina liked him. It was very interesting to her, working with all the Avengers, each had been the legend of their particular time or city therefore each had an ego or opposite personality, Steve and Tony were ones that usually ended up getting into a heated argument.

Elaina sank down in her bed in her room, she didn't even bother changing from her navy blue S.H.I.E.L.D uniform, it's not like she would get much sleep anyway. Soon Fury would call her and the Avengers in to discuss the new mission they were about to be handed. She slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep, not that she wanted dreams because they usually turned into horrible nightmares.

"_Agent E. Barton please report to Director Fury,_" the sound of her earpiece woke her up.

She looked out the window she was fortunate to have and saw the sun had almost set. She was glad for a few hours sleep before a mission, missions always derived sleep from everyone.

"So they figured out a solution to the name confusion," she mumbled to herself as she pulled on her black combat boots.

She walked back to the main deck of the Helicarrier, seeing Clint perched up high on one of the metal bars near the roof of the ship where she knew he could see everything below and beside him for a few hundred feet. He was the most intriguing and complicated of the group for her to try to figure out. She guessed that's what protected him, being so isolated. She knew he was watching her as she located Fury and walked up to him. The dark-skinned, bald-headed man wearing a black eye-patch radiated command.

"Agent Barton, I picked you, for this particular mission, to work with the Avengers directly. If you review the file you will soon see why. I do not mean to bring back any memories you may have wished to forget, but it is crucial that we work this mission," Fury said.

Elaina had a bad feeling about what was in the manila folder stamped with S.H.I.E.L.D's emblem he handed her.

"I'll look at it right away, sir," she said receiving a smile and nod from Fury. "And, sir, if it's crucial to saving the world I don't mind having a few bad memories."

Fury gave her an approving nod and turned back to the flat screen tablet-computers beside him. Elaina started to walk back to her room to read the file, but stopped when she opened the cover. She stepped off of the main walkway of the ship to read the first page of the file. The picture of the blue cube made Elaina's eyes widen.

_He held Clint's arm tightly, preventing him from moving away. Elaina looked on curiously, wondering what the assassin would do._

"_You have heart," the tall man gripping Clint said coolly._

_He touched the point of his scepter against Clint's chest. Elaina watched as Clint's eyes widened and changed colors from their normal bright blue to black then back to a blue matching the glow of the man's scepter and the Tesseract. Clint became stiff and replaced his gun to it's holster around his leg. Elaina knew something was wrong, Clint should be attacking this man, not putting away his weapon. The man aimed his scepter at the computers next to Elaina, but she was too busy worrying about Clint to dodge the blue energy he shot at them, she was thrown to the floor by the blast. Blood dripped into Elaina's eyes from the cut on her head, disappearing on her navy uniform. She laid there hearing words exchanged between Clint and Fury, but Clint wasn't talking _to_ Fury, he was talking _at_ him, their words were blurry to Elaina. She forced herself to her feet, just as Clint was walking by her._

"_Hawkeye..." she said through her blurry mind._

_In the background the ceiling was cracking and the ground was shaking. Her words didn't phase him._

"_Barton!" she was desperately trying to reach some part of him._

_They were almost out of time, the whole aboveground part of S.H.I.E.L.D's base was about to crash down on them, hundreds of thousands of pounds of rock and concrete. She quickly switched tactics. _

"_Clint...stop, Clint..." her words were choked between waves of pain. "Clint, please, what are you doing?"_

_He turned to her, seeming to _see_ her for a second before wincing as if he was in pain and going back to looking distant. He walked away after the tall man and Dr. Selvig. Elaina couldn't have imagined how much pain and harm he would soon cause._

"Elaina?" she jumped at his voice.

She whirled around, facing Clint, preparing for an attack before realizing the file had brought on a daydream. Not a dream or a flashback, a horrible nightmare she'd actually lived.

"Hawkeye, thank God, I thought..."

"What?"

"Never mind what what I thought, did Fury tell you about the mission?"

"He just did, I saw you up here and was going to talk to you about it. And I'm not going to attack you, Elaina, I hate what Loki did to me," Clint said.

Damn him for being such a good assassin, to read her face so well. She knew it would be pointless to lie to him, so she didn't.

"We all did," she replied simply and started walking.

The only reason the Avengers had been called back was because now the world faced this new danger. The reason Elaina had been called to work with the Avengers was because of her past; her abilities and the fact that she'd faced the new threat before, like Fury said.

The file was thick with information that S.H.I.E.L.D had collected on this master mind. Elaina had a feeling they were missing some information or they wouldn't need her. Dr. Durov, she shivered at the mere mention of his name, he made Loki look sane. Loki, an Asgardian who considered himself a god, had opened a portal between his world beyond and Earth by stealing and using the Tesseract, which had been in S.H.I.E.L.D's hands. The Tesseract was a cube of pure energy and an artifact of Asgard. Loki wanted to rule Earth using his army transported through the Tesseract, but the Avengers had put a stop to that. Not before Loki and his army had destroyed half of Manhattan, though. Loki had been captured and escorted back to his world by Thor- one of the Avengers, also an Asgardian, and not to mention Loki's adoptive brother. Elaina read over the file and realized why Fury had said it might bring on bad memories, it already had. Dr. Durov had come back to the surface and hadn't been to discreet about it, he'd been on S.H.I.E.L.D's radar immediately. He'd planned to steal and use the Tesseract's power to create some kind of weapon for mind control.

_Too bad someone beat him to it,_ Elaina thought sarcastically.

She knew, though, that he was obsessive and would not give up his plans so easily. As she read down the page she saw S.H.I.E.L.D was well aware of this. They didn't know, however, about his favorite hiding spots and labs, she made a metal note to inform them about that.

After dropping the file off in her room Elaina returned to the main deck of the Helicarrier. She quickly got permission to use the high-tech computers and went to work scanning all of Durov's known hideouts for any signs of him or his henchmen. When all of them came up clean she searched all the locations she knew for his labs She was so into her work that she hardly heard him walk up behind her.

"So, you can work some technology of your own I see," he said.

Elaina turned around, facing the man that was almost ten years older than herself.

"Hello, again, Tony," she said in an annoyed voice, hoping he'd go away.

He seemed to take it the exact opposite way and sat on the desk next to her.

"I'm sorry, really, about earlier I had no idea you were so defensive of your past work," Tony said.

"It's fine, not a big deal," she replied focusing on the computer screen.

"You looked like you wanted to kill me, which seems like a big deal to me," Tony insisted.

Elaina turned in her chair to face him.

"Tony, it really was nothing, I wasn't in an answering mood for all your questions. I was tired and a little concerned, that was all. Now, if you want someone to look at you with genuine murder in their eyes, go brag about yourself in front of Captain Rogers."

Tony laughed, giving her one of his million-dollar smiles, which applied to him since he was a billionaire.

"What're you working on there?" he asked curiously.

"Been informed about the mission yet?"

"A couple minutes ago," Tony said with a nod.

"I'm trying to locate Dr. Durov, I sort of know some possible locations he could be hiding in because of my 'past work'," Elaina said.

One of the computers she'd been working on started beeping.

"Looks like you got a hit," Tony said. "I'm hoping for some place tropical."

Elaina smiled, rolling her eyes and turned back to the screen, reading the location.

"So is it the Bahamas? Jamaica?" Tony asked.

"No, I hope you like Russia."

**Might not upload very often...only on 3rd chapter I uploaded by request of my friend...anyway hope u liked...review if you did :) thanks**


	2. Not A Good Beginning

**So here ya'll go, gonna be going on a trip soon so I'll have plenty of time to type...kinda glad the movie for avengers isnt out yet cause if u've seen my transformers fanfic ill be riding in the car with the same annoying person who made me watch DOTM 800 times in stead of writing... anyway here you go...oh and im sorry for any spelling/missing word errors, I type some of these chapters around midnight and my fingers arent good at keeping up with my mind sometimes**

**Chapter Two- Not A Good Beginning**

"Russia? Are you kidding?" Tony said looking closely at her screen.

"I'm afraid not. I didn't entirely expect Durov to return to his homeland for this. I need to inform Director Fury right away, where is he?" Elaina asked Tony.

Tony shrugged, still looking in shock at her findings on the screen. Elaina gathered her belongings and wiped the computer screens, Tony still looking at them. She walked up on the main deck to where Fury usually was, she found Agent Maria Hill in his place, deciding to ask her where he was.

"He's with Dr. Banner," Agent Hill said.

Elaina thanked her, proceeding cautiously to Dr. Banner's lab on the second deck. Dr. Bruce Banner had to be the most effective and most dangerous of the team. Well, not Banner himself, if you didn't know his secret you would never suspect that. Banner was one of the most caring and nicest people Elaina knew, however, when he did get angry -and it wasn't too often lately- you didn't want to be in the same _city_ as him. An overabundance of gamma radiation exposure made Banner turn into the enormous eight-foot-tall, muscular green monster everyone -including Banner- called the Hulk whenever he got too angry. The Hulk would destroy anything -friend or foe- in his way, but somehow Banner had learned to do controlled transformations into the Hulk. This proved helpful during the Manhattan battle so that the Hulk only targeted enemies and not his allies. Elaina also thought that S.H.I.E.L.D didn't want to have to redo about seventy-five-percent of the Helicarrier's interior again. She proceeded with caution only because she didn't know why Fury was with Dr. Banner.

The doors to Dr. Banner's lab slid open before Elaina knocked. The lab was airy and light, filled with high-tech gadgets provided by Stark. The rear part of the lab was made of glass, looking out at the sky from the back of the Helicarrier.

"Please, come in, Miss. Barton," came Dr. Banner's voice.

Elaina smiled and came through the doorway. She saw Fury standing opposite of Bruce, a table between them, Fury's hands were behind his back. Bruce was a few inches taller than Elaina, his dark brown hair was very neat for a change and he wore thinly-framed glasses over his brown eyes. He was a couple years younger than Tony, but the two were on basically the same level of intelligence. They often talked in their own language when it came to technology or science leaving the others wondering what they were saying.

"I was just telling Dr. Banner about the mission. I assume you've found something if you're here?" Fury said.

"I have, sir, something very important," Elaina replied.

Both men looked at her curiously, Banner shifted.

"She's fast," he said with a laugh. "Guess Tony and I have rubbed off on her a little."

Elaina smiled and Banner smiled back at her.

"Sir, I know where Durov is hiding," she said nervously.

"That's good, very good, Agent Barton. Let me gather the Avengers for a meeting and you can tell all of us then," Fury said walking out of the lab, leaving Elaina and Bruce alone.

"That man is definitely different," Bruce said suddenly.

"I'm going to assume you won't be on the ground for this mission?" Elaina asked Bruce.

"You're right, I'm guessing S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't want the...other guy in threat of being mind controlled, if that's even possible," Bruce said.

Elaina knew what he meant, the Hulk being under the control of enemy forces against S.H.I.E.L.D means that S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't stand a chance. She was sure -as was Bruce, apparently- Fury didn't want to risk finding out if it was even possible for the Hulk to be mind controlled if Durov had somehow managed to build his weapon already.

"I better get going, you coming?" Elaina asked.

"Yes, I'll be right there, you go ahead," Bruce said gathering up some papers on his desk.

The meeting room wasn't really a room, more like an area to the back of the main deck with a large round-edged, rectangular, glass-topped, black table. Elaina sat between Clint and Steve, Tony and Natasha were on either side of them, Bruce was just walking in before taking a seat next to Tony and Fury was on the other side of the table. The table was large enough that there was at least a foot and a half between each chair.

"I have called you all here concerning our most recent mission, by now you've all been informed about Dr. Durov and his...interest in some of our work," Fury said. "You are here because Agent Barton, Elaina, has found Dr. Durov. Agent?"

"Thank you, Director. My information suggests that Dr. Durov is in central Russia at one of his known labs. This lab is made out of an ice cave that he's reinforced with concrete and stone. Now, part of the lab is hundreds of feet below the ground and may prove a challenge in traversing and finding him in it. I do not know where in the lab he is I just know that thermal imaging picked up human signatures in that area..." Elaina said.

"You don't know for sure if Dr. Durov is in there?" Fury asked.

"I do know, sir, Durov wouldn't leave his men there without him, besides he has a particularly..._odd_ heat signature which I found in the area. He was definitely there," Elaina continued.

Fury nodded and Elaina noticed Natasha had been looking at the ground the entire time, her red hair covering her face. Elaina knew Natasha probably had bad memories of past assignments in Russia or just memories in general.

"We'll log the location into the navigation and will be arriving at Russia in...about ten hours. You're dismissed," Fury said.

The Avengers got up and went their separate ways, Tony and Bruce leaving for Bruce's lab. Elaina walked up to where Fury was at his command post by the computers, giving him the location of the lab.

The Helicarrier had turned around, heading across the Atlantic toward Russia. Elaina had time to read over the file in the next couple of hours, a lot of the information she knew, but a lot of it was new to her. After that she got bored sitting in her room with nothing to do, so she got up and decided to find the work out room. She'd heard there was one, but had never actually been in there yet, and that's just what she needed at a time like this. She wasn't about to go into a mission -a potentially dangerous one at that- without having fired a gun in over a month. She went down a level from her room, finding the room on her own rather quickly. It was large, black-walled and very spacious with different sections for various methods of fighting. There were weights in one section with an open space to train with them in. Across from that there was a shooting range with different sized targets and different sized ranges. The best part about the room to Elaina was that it was empty, not another soul was in the place, just what she needed. Elaina walked over to the target that was medium-sized and had about a ten-foot range, taking her normal, black handgun from its holster around her left thigh. She loaded and checked the gun before aiming it at the target and firing once. She was pretty shocked when she saw the bullet had hit right in the center of the bullseye. She smiled and decided to make it harder. She moved to a smaller target, pressing a button on the wall so the target was now moving from side to side. She aimed and fired three times as it moved back and forth, the bullets all struck the bullseye.

"Guess I haven't lost my touch," she said to herself.

She'd known how to shoot a gun since she was very young, younger than she could remember, it had become second-nature to her by now. She was only twenty-six and, yet, her past was filled with horrible, bloody memories of past assignments in her younger years that she would never forget. Natasha and Clint were the only ones who could truly understand what her life had been like. The only ones who could relate, could know what it was like because their lives had been just like hers. After all, just like them, she was a trained assassin.

Five hours, that's all the time it had been since the Helicarrier had been put on route to Russia. Elaina had spent three of those hours reading the file, the other two were spent in the work out room. One of the effects of being an assassin for so long -that Elaina had definitely noticed- was that if she wasn't doing something she would quickly get bored and have to find something to do. It was around ten o'clock at night when Elaina walked back up to the main deck to check the location again. She wasn't about to have S.H.I.E.L.D go all the way to Russia if Durov had already left his lab there. Elaina pulled up the location on a computer within minutes, and ran thermal imaging over the satellite image. Sure enough, whoever was there hadn't moved or decided to leave. An overly loud clap of thunder made Elaina jump, almost falling from her seat in the process. She hadn't even noticed the start of the rain pelting the glass front of the Helicarrier, it was like it came out of nowhere. Lightning streaked blue lines through the pitch-black sky, the giant claps of thunder shaking the Helicarrier. Elaina could hear high-speed winds whistling around the huge ship, she knew they must be going through a heavy storm for the winds to be shaking the Helicarrier like it weighed so little.

"Go back to your room, Agent Barton," Fury told her. "Try to get some rest."

Elaina nodded, not needing to be told twice.

Lightning blazed right next to the Helicarrier, flashing a blinding light into the ship. The thunder that followed shook the carrier so hard Elaina fell to her knees trying to go up the main deck stairs. She got back up, straightening her uniform and continuing to walk back to her room. She didn't get far before stopping when she noticed some S.H.I.E.L.D agents looking at something with concerned faces. As she got closer she realized what the agents were staring at was Clint, but he was on the floor shaking uncontrollably. Worry gripped her and she moved cautiously toward him, the agents behind her. When she was a few feet from him she motioned the agents back.

"Give him some space," she said, the agents complying.

Elaina looked down at Clint, his face was contorted in anger and pain, but his eyes were tightly shut. She'd never seen him like this before, he was always calm and controlled.

_He's having a nightmare, the storm must have triggered it,_ Elaina thought, she knew what it felt like.

"Clint..." she said softly, trying to wake him. "Clint."

The muscles in his arms were clenched tightly, straining against a nonexistent force.

"_Clint_," Elaina said forcibly without yelling.

All of a sudden, Clint was on his feet, he threw his arm out at Elaina. She thanked God for her split-second reflexes as she threw up her arms, blocking Clint's blow. She knew he was like a cornered animal, but in his own mind, not seeing her because he threw another blow at her. She blocked one of his arms but her back was to him. He went to hit her again, but she threw up her elbow, catching him hard below his cheekbone. She spun out of his way.

"Clint! Stop!" she exclaimed throwing back two more attacks.

She finally trapped his forearm between both of her forearms, preventing him from moving.

"Clint, you're alright, you're fine," Elaina said.

He seemed like he'd snapped out of his fear because he was looking at Elaina in shock. They were both breathing hard, Clint's arms were glazed with sweat from the nightmare, she released her hold on him.

"Elaina..." he seemed to think about what he'd just done. "Did I hurt you?" he added, looking horrified.

"No, you didn't, I'm fine," Elaina replied.

"I'm sorry," he said walking away.

"Clint..." she said after him, but he just kept walking.

She frowned, knowing Clint felt horrible, she could see it on his face. It wasn't his fault, she didn't want him to feel bad about it. However, she did know better than to follow him, he needed space away from everyone else. If he wanted to talk about it, Elaina decided he'd come to her.

Returning to her room to get rest like Fury ordered had been the best thing for Elaina to do. The storm had blown over in a few minutes, but had pushed their progress back a whole hour. Elaina had learned that when she'd fallen going up the stairs wasn't from the thunder, lightning had struck one of the Helicarrier's engines. The lightning had short-circuited the engine and Tony had to restart the entire system. She was sitting on her bed reading the last few pages of the file on Durov before falling asleep.

_She was standing in the freezing-cold room, pulling the black fleece wrap around her shoulders. Her red floor-length ball-gown didn't provide much warmth considering it was one-sleeved. Her blond hair was in a curly updo, a few of the curled strands had escaped and hung around her face. A man at least twenty years older than her walked into the room, smiling as he saw her. His black hair had started graying around the part in his hair, he wore a black dress-jacket over a white shirt and black pants._

"_I had fun tonight, Ashley, did you?" he asked her with a slight Russian accent to his words._

_His voice was deep and smooth._

"_I did, Aaron, the dance was very nice," she replied with a smile._

_He handed her a thick wool blanket that she quickly wrapped around her._

"_I will be right back, and then we can do whatever it is that you want," the man, Aaron, said._

_He walked out of the door he'd come through, the only door in the room. She stood there, wondering what to do. This all seemed so hard, to get this far with him and for what? For her to form an emotional bond that wasn't real, that was fake to her but real to him, only to have it broken by the certainty of her assignment? It wasn't long before Aaron returned, smiling at her as he always did._

"_What would you like to do, my dear?" he asked her._

"_Could you show me around your place? I'm very curious," she asked._

"_How could I resist you? Of course," he replied._

_He took her hand in his, leading her out of the room. As they walked down a corridor, she looked around marveling at the creations made out of gems that lined the walls. Suddenly, a small child, a little boy about the age of five, ran up to Aaron._

"_Daddy, please come play," the little boy said innocently, holding onto Aaron's hand._

_The sound of his little voice tore into her heart, making her feel hopelessly lost. If she thought the assignment was hard before, it was impossible now. She knew she couldn't kill this man._

"_Elaina_," his voice woke her from her sleep.

"_Elaina_?" Clint's voice came over her earpiece.

"Clint, what is it?"

"_Could you come up here?_" he asked.

All grogginess from her sleep washed away as she heard the troubled tone of his voice, he never sounded anything like that, ever. She knew where he was, it would only take her a minute or so to get up there.

"It's fine if you don't want to it's late, we all need sleep, I know..." he paused. "It's just..."

She was almost there, she hoisted herself up on the metal platform next to where Clint sat.

"'Just' what?" she asked him.

He turned on her quickly, looking shocked that she'd snuck up beside him.

"Air vents," she replied to his expression. "Didn't think about those did you?"

He smiled, looking down at the floor many feet below where they sat. Elaina could see out over the main deck of the Helicarrier, she could watch every person, see every computer screen and she could see out of the glass front of the Helicarrier. Now she knew why Clint spent most of his time up here, it was very peaceful and away from most of the noise and rush of a regular day on the Helicarrier.

"I always think about the air vents," Clint said looking back at Elaina.

His eyes fell on where her arms rested in her lap next to him.

"I did hurt you..." he said nodding to her bruised forearms.

"Not as bad as I hurt you," she said motioning to the black and blue bruise spread across his cheek.

Clint looked out ahead of him, he was silent beside Elaina. She looked at him and saw the strong-willed archer she knew him to be wasn't present, something had snapped in Clint earlier that night.

"I was back to when Loki had me under his control," Clint said.

Elaina didn't say anything, she decided just to let Clint get this off his chest.

"It was horrible, I tried to fight it, but when I did it just gave him more power over me. I couldn't move on my own, only when he wanted me to, I couldn't sleep. It was like he was _playing_ with me, like I was a tool or weapon to him. Tasha wouldn't tell me how many people I'd killed under his control..."

"You didn't _need_ to know, Clint, it wasn't your fault."

Elaina couldn't stand him blaming himself for something that had been completely out of his control

"What if I'd killed one of the Avengers or you? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."

Elaina could tell he was appalled by the very thought of killing one of the Avengers. Natasha had told her what Loki said he'd make Clint to to Tasha. To have him kill her "slowly, intimately" then to release his hold on Clint's mind just for Clint to see what he'd done to Natasha and kill Clint. The thought sent chills down Elaina, making her glad Natasha had slammed Clint's head into a railing unknowingly breaking Loki's control.

"Last night all of that was the present, not past. I'm sorry I attacked you," Clint said.

"It's nothing I couldn't handle," Elaina said.

Clint gently grabbed her arm as she walked away.

"Elaina, I really am," he said.

"Clint, I've had plenty worse, trust me. You don't have to apologize, we've all been there before, I've almost _killed_ people in my sleep. All you did to me was give me a little hand-to-hand combat practice before the mission," she said with a smile.

He smiled back at her. As she maneuvered her way back she realized with everything that had happened already, this wasn't a good start to a mission that hadn't even begun.

**So a little in sight into Elaina's past. Anyway working on chapter 3...almost four now. I dont know when I'll upload now, but summer break is a half a day away so yaay. If you liked it review below**

**:) ~SHSK**


	3. No Turning Back

**So, sorry for the lack of updates guys, really thought I was going to have time this summer, sadly I go back to school in a week :( I hate it...so here's an update and I will be typing like mad to finish the next chapter for you. This chapter is very long so it should hold until I can get 4 finished**

**Chapter Three- No Turning Back**

"...and that means _you_ too, Mr. Stark."

The intercom of the Helicarrier crackled off. Fury's voice had just been on it, telling all the Avengers and Elaina to report to the main deck right away. That little bit about Tony had been added quickly after, Elaina now had the feeling Tony didn't always come when he was supposed to. Elaina had quickly turned to walk back to the main deck, she knew they had to be getting close to Durov's lab by Elaina arrived on the deck she saw Fury standing by the table, his hands behind his back as usual. Tony, Bruce, and Natasha were already sitting at the table.

"Agent Barton, please, take a seat," Fury said.

Elaina slid into an empty chair beside Tony as Clint and Steve walked onto the deck. Clint sat next to Natasha, Steve next to Elaina.

"Now that everyone's here we can begin. Miss Barton, I assume you're familiar with the inside of this lab?" Fury asked.

"Yes, sir, very much so," Elaina replied.

"Good. Then you can tell me where all the entrances and exits are?" Fury said handing her a map with the lab on it.

"There are entrances here, here, and here," Elaina said pointing to the far west, east, and south of the building. "It's divided into eight different lab rooms, two common rooms, and a room I've never been in but I know where it is. Each lab room has two entrances or exits from it and clear, glass walling. The common rooms are enforced with concrete walls, have places to sit, a couch or chair, and a wood table. One of the rooms has only one door, the other has two. Now, all of the labs and the unknown room are underground about...twenty feet, the two common rooms are aboveground and there's a second story that houses a main power panels and an elevator and a stair case that leads into the labs. There are about five or seven foot aisles between each lab room."

Elaina paused, noticing all of the Avengers and Fury were looking at her with shocked expressions. For some reason she could hardly take the stares that she knew meant no harm. She closed her eyes, memories from her past flooding into her mind, that room, the boy, the love that was never really there. She felt a comforting hand on her arm, she looked down to see Steve's concerned face looking up at her. She gave him a weak smile before sighing and continuing.

"Anything else you need to know?" she asked Fury with a hint of humor.

"I think that'll do, Agent, thank you," Fury replied. "So here's how it's gonna go. Stark, Romanoff, you're gonna go in and search up top, find the panels and that elevator. Stark, hack into those panels which I'm assuming also hold wires for the technology?"

At this he looked at Elaina, who nodded.

"Get all the info you can and cut off the elevator while Agent Romanoff covers you. Agents Barton, both of you go underground and search those labs for any signs of weapons or Durov himself. Dr. Banner, Stark's going to feed you that info, see what you can make of it from up here. Captain Rogers, you're gonna be on stand-by in case things don't go our way, I only want a few of you in there so we don't raise suspicion. I figured you could lead them from up here," Fury continued.

"I'd be glad to,sir," Steve said.

"Both teams are going to enter here," Fury said pointing to the east entrance. "It's the furthest from the main panels and stairs that Agent Barton pointed out, but it's also the furthest from the heat signatures we picked up. We sure as hell don't want any of you walking into an ambush."

"And what if we don't find anything of use?" Natasha asked leaning on her forearms on the table.

"Don't worry about that, Miss Romanoff, I'm sure we'll find something we can use," Fury said. "If not, we'll still have people we can interrogate."

The next couple hours were spent checking weapons, preparing for the mission, and doing anything else that needed to be done for the mission to go as planned. Fury wanted the team to have the cover of night, even though they were in a very remote location. They were at least three-hundred miles north of any civilization, the closest south being the city of Krasnoyarsk. Elaina was nervously checking over her gun for about the eighth time, she'd been on missions like this before, but never with the Avengers. The chance to prove that S.H.I.E.L.D had made the right decision in choosing her was with the success of the mission. She especially didn't want to screw up in front of a team that had saved the world, she knew they liked and accepted her, but to her failure wasn't an option. Not many agents in S.H.I.E.L.D got to work directly with the Avengers so the pressure to deliver was also on her shoulders as well. Elaina looked up from cleaning her gun to see Steve walk into the room where she and the rest of the Avengers sat or stood.

"We've got one hour until drop down, suit up and get ready to go," Steve said.

The Avengers smiled at his "suit up" line, making Elaina think that it was something of a joke to them.

Tony was the only one to leave the room, most likely to put on his Iron Man suit. Natasha already wore her black, tight-leather S.H.I.E.L.D uniform with her long-sleeve shirt zipped down in its usual v-neck style. Clint wore his leather vest with the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem on one shoulder and black pants tucked into boots, he also wore a black light jacket with the collar turned up. Elaina, too, wore a jacket over her usual uniform, she could already see the white snow swirling outside the Helicarrier, highlighted by the black of night. Elaina turned as she heard the sharp snap of Clint's bow opening, she watched as he placed his black quiver over his shoulder and placed his armguard under his jacket sleeve. Elaina put her gun in its holster, placing a spare in a holster around her waist.

"_It's pretty rough out here,_" came Tony's voice from the earpieces.

Elaina knew everyone had also heard him because of Natasha's defeated smile.

"_That's why you have the suit_," came Natasha's voice.

"_Oh, sweet Natasha, I have this suit for much more than protection from mother nature_," was Tony's reply.

Elaina knew Tony's high-tech iron suit was resistant to most any weather; wind, rain, lighting, and the occasional missile or two. The flashy red and goldish-yellow paint scheme of the armor was a little too visible, not to mention the glowing blue-lighted triangle on the chest of the armor, the rectangles on the helmet for him to see through, and the glowing circles on his palms.

"Alright, drop down in five minutes!" Elaina hadn't even noticed Steve had walked into the room again.

Their team boarded a smaller Quinjet that hovered above the east entrance of the white-roofed lab. They were about thirty feet above the ground, as low as the jet could hover in the harsh weather. Elaina was wondering how they were going to get down, she could hardly see Tony on the ground -only the glowing spots on the suit were visible- though he was almost invisible in the harsh blizzard they were facing. Clint was suddenly at the edge of the jet's open door, a very long coil of rope in his hand.

"Let's do this my way," Clint said starting to tie the end of the rope through a ring inside the jet.

"'Your way' doesn't look too promising, Clint," Elaina said nervously.

Clint gave her a half-smile while still focusing on the extremely complicated knot he was tying through the metal ring on the wall of the jet. Elaina recognized the knot, only assassins like her, Clint, and Natasha knew how to tie it successfully, assassins were really the only ones who had use of it. It was very useful if you wanted to tie someone to a chair without fear of them getting loose.

Clint finished the knot and threw the rope out of the back of the plane. Elaina watched as the line thrashed like an angered snake in the high-speed winds of the blizzard. She didn't like heights to start with, but this, this was crazy. She'd told herself she wouldn't let any one of the Avengers, especially Tony, know about her fear of heights, she knew from Tony she'd never hear the end of it.

"Are you sure this is such a good idea with the wind and all?" Elaina asked over a loud gust of wind that blew through the open jet. The wind cut through her light jacket, chilling her to the bone. Stark-white snowflakes blew into the open back of the jet, melting quickly in its hot interior. Elaina was glad they were about to go into the shelter of the lab, no matter how dangerous it could turn out to be. Natasha was the first one to literally brave the storm, she grabbed the rope between her gloved hands and slowly slid down it. When she was almost to the ground Clint held out his hand toward the rope.

"After you," he said to Elaina.

She gave him a faltering smile, steeling her nerves and going over the edge of the jet.

The wind tossed the rope back and forth, beating and battering Elaina as she slid down it. She had an iron grip on the rope as it wound between her fingers, threatening to slip through her grasp. She could see Clint some feet above her also fighting to stay on the rope.

"_I'm on the ground, it's not much better down here,_" came Natasha's voice through the earpieces.

Her voice was broken and hard to hear over the howling wind.

"_Elaina and I are on our way down, we're about a quarter of the way down_," Clint said.

Elaina looked down over her shoulder, she was at least ten feet off the snowy ground below. She was glad she'd worn full gloves in stead of her usual fingerless gloves when the rope started slipping through her hands. She tightened her grip on it, not fearing chaffing, but it didn't do her any good. A sudden updraft of the frosty wind carried the rest of the rope through Elaina's hands. She had a split-second to realize this before she fell. The impact into the ground from ten feet hurt less than she would have imagined if she'd had the time to, though her thoughts were before realizing that she had fallen into a mound of snow.

"I hate Russia," Elaina groaned, getting up.

She got to her feet, making sure she hadn't hurt herself and brushed the snow off her clothes and out of her hair. She could see the lights of the lab in the distance, someone was definitely there, they were in the middle of nowhere and not another soul knew about this place besides S.H.I.E.L.D and Durov. In the background she could hear the soft flow of water from the small bend in the Yenisei River that the lab was located near.

"Nice fall down the rabbit hole, Alice," Elaina turned to see Tony in his suit.

She rolled her eyes at him, walking away. Clint had let go of the two feet of rope he had left, landing next to Natasha. Elaina loaded her gun, walking over to them.

"Ready to blow the roof off this hell hole?" she asked them.

Clint took one of his black arrows from his quiver and his bow from around his back.

He knocked the arrow, "I'd be glad to."

Natasha loaded her own gun, "Make that two."

Tony soon joined them and they walked through the snow to the building. When they reached the doors of the east entrance Elaina knew as soon as they stepped through the doors there would be no turning back.

Natasha surveyed the double doors made of reinforced, bullet-proof glass. Elaina's eyes were elsewhere, on the complicated keypad on the wall next to the doors. She walked up to the high-tech gadget that could have been made by Tony Stark himself, looking for a way to hack into it if necessary. She didn't know if it was an assassin thing, hacking, but she knew that she, Natasha, and Clint were all very good at it. A closer look at the keypad showed her she didn't need to hack this thing at all. It was a six-digit pass code followed by a single-word password.

"So, what's the situation? Are we going to shoot the lock off? Break the doors? Any of this going to involve my help?" Tony asked.

"No, it's a six-digit pass followed by a word," Elaina explained. "And if we get it wrong even once I'm sure we're standing on top of trap doors that will drop us straight down into who-knows-what. Durov's favorite method of punishment is trap doors, I'll promise you that."

"So, hack it?" Clint suggested starting to replace the tip of his arrow with another specific one.

"Not necessary. I'm sure even if we hack it we'll trip some sort of alarm, also ending with us dropping to our deaths."

"Then what? How do you suggest we get in, 007?" Tony replied sarcastically.

Elaina closed her eyes, thinking of six numbers and a word, now would be when she could prove herself; to use her past experience to help them carry on with the mission. However, failure, even a slight misconception or slip in her memory, could cost not only her life, but the Avengers' as well.

"I know the pass codes," she said looking down at the keypad.

"Are you sure? Sure without any small, reason or unreasonable, even crazy or erratic doubt?" Tony said.

"I'm sure," Elaina insisted.

"Are you?" Natasha asked.

"Nat, trust her," Clint said forcibly.

She wiped the accumulating snow from the keypad, Elaina entered six digits, 031704, the day they met, the keypad flashed giving her the letters to enter the word. Her fingers flew over the keypad, making sure to hit only the letters she wanted. Behind her she could feel the tension in her team, each bracing in case the worst should happen. Not only were the letters getting snowed upon, they were in Russian.

_Good thing I'm very skilled at Russian_, Elaina thought trying to release her nerves slightly.

She entered the last letter, ready to be dropped.

The Avengers, wound so tightly with anxiety, all jumped back in response to the noise of the door popping open. Warm air seeped through the jar in the door, spilling over Elaina's feet. She took a step back, looking back at the Avengers who all audibly sighed in relief. Elaina herself had sighed when the door had opened, glad she hadn't caused all of them to be captured or killed.

"Director Fury, we're in," Elaina said into her earpiece.

"_Very good, I'll let Captain Rogers take it from here_," Fury's voice came back.

"_Alright, first, you need to get control of the video monitors, Stark, think you're up to it?" Steve said._

"_Of course," Tony said._

"_Widow, cover him,"_ Steve said using Natasha's code name.

Elaina knew the reason Tony didn't have a code name was because he'd already revealed to the world he was Iron Man, so it didn't matter.

"_Guys, don't split up yet, wait until we get a hold of those cameras. Hawkeye, Eagle, cover Stark and Widow," _Steve said to Elaina and Clint.

Elaina wasn't very attached to her code name, mainly because Tony used it to poke fun at her and Clint having the same last name. She didn't mind it was also her code name because she tended to work alone most times, she _was_ a loner, that she wouldn't deny. She took her gun from the holster around her thigh, holding it toward the ground with her back to Natasha. Clint was beside her, the tip of his arrow pointed at the ground.

"The camera wires are with the main panels, just keep moving straight ahead," Elaina said, trying to keep her voice down.

They moved together across the slick black floor, Elaina's senses heightening as she tried to make out anything that moved.

Weapons went up in a second when an odd sound echoed through the building. In the dim lighting every shadow seemed like it could be a potential threat.

"Well, at least we know we can all react quickly if we need to," Tony said, no doubt trying to release some tension.

"Oh, look," he added in a sarcastically-cheerful voice.

Elaina looked back over her shoulder, they were at the stairs leading to the second floor of the lab. Tony and Natasha went up the black stairs first, Clint and Elaina following them up.

"To the left a few feet, they should be on the wall," Elaina said to Tony.

They walked a few steps before coming to a large, blank wall the color of the floor. On the wall were two black hatches that blended in with the color of the wall. Tony flipped open the hatch of the first one, revealing three uniformed clusters of wires. Elaina watched as he looked over all of the wires, picking one out of the apparent hundreds, and placed a device with S.H.I.E.L.D's emblem on it on the wire. She recognized the bug when she saw it as a result of her taking inventory of all of S.H.I.E.L.D's technology one day when she got overly bored. The bug would hack into the cameras and shoot the video feeds back to a computer on the Helicarrier.

"Director, Captain? You getting any of the videos?" Elaina said into her earpiece.

"_Yes, we've got it, good job,_" Fury said.

"_Go ahead and split up. Stark, Widow, stay there and get the rest of the info from those wires. Eagle, Hawkeye, you two go search underground for the weapon or Durov,_" Steve said.

Elaina nodded to Clint, having him nod back.

"Good luck, you two," Elaina said to Tony and Natasha.

"The same to you," Natasha said to Elaina and Clint.

Elaina walked to her left down the wall, using it as cover, Clint following her. She rounded a corner to her right with her gun aimed in front of her as to not be caught by surprise, Clint flanked her closely covering her back. They moved down another long, narrow hallway with Elaina having to concentrate to see anything in the still dim light. She knew Clint could see far better than she could under any condition -what earned him the name Hawkeye- including darkness, but seeing as he didn't know this place as well as she did she had to take the lead for time's-sake. Elaina did feel safe, though, with Clint covering her she would trust him with her life, which was exactly what hung in the balance for both of them; their lives. Elaina stopped at a thick door with a single window, like the ones people would see leading to hotel staircases. She entered an authorization code in the lock on the door, the door opening with a click. Elaina went through the door, her gun still aimed to kill, Clint behind her with his bow still loaded. Both of them descended the stairs, unaware if any threats awaited them.

The stairs led further into the ground, each flight decreasing in temperature. Elaina pulled her jacket closer around her, still keeping a firm hand on her gun. She counted down the floors they descended by noting when doors appeared on the landings of the stairs. When they reached the landing of the fifth floor under Elaina motioned to Clint, he moved beside her.

"Be ready for any and everything, there aren't any cameras inside this door so Stark and Widow can't help us; we're on our own," Elaina whispered entering another code on the locked door. "Ready?"

Clint nodded. Elaina quickly went through the door, pivoting in a circle to make sure no one had been waiting for them. Clint came behind her doing the same thing, his bowstring drawn back. He slowly released the tension in the bowstring, letting the arrow tip drop toward the floor when she motioned that it was clear.

"Black Widow, Stark, Captain, we're down in the labs, no sign of anyone or thing, keep an eye on the monitors outside the fifth staircase down, don't let anyone sneak in on us," Elaina said into her earpiece.

"_I'll do that, Eagle, just see what you can get for us,_" Steve said. "_Good luck_."

Elaina looked around, it was mostly darkness besides the blue glow illuminating the dozen glass rooms all around the floor. The floor itself was massive, an, at least, ten-foot aisle ran between the dozen rooms, six on each side of the aisle. Smaller aisles of six or seven foot across separated each room from the other, the rooms were square and twenty foot across each. The glass walls of each room reached up to the fifteen-foot ceiling. Elaina walked down the main aisle slowly, quietly, looking through the glass into the first lab room. She saw the sorts, microscopes, a computer, vials, beakers, a table and some other instruments that resembled ones that she'd seen in Dr. Banner's lab. She didn't see anything unusual so she moved to the next room. She did this, Clint double-checking the rooms after her, until she came to the sixth room. Inside, it was just like the others except for stacks of papers in folders sitting on the table. The folders were marked in Russian, but in an odd Russian she didn't quite understand, like some sort of code. Elaina saw she would have to enter a pass-code into the door to open it, also unlike the others. She entered a code into the lock the word "_incorrect_" in Russian flashed across the screen, she nervously rethought and entered another pass-code getting the same result. Clint had come beside her, looking at the lock as well. She knew what she was about to do was rash and downright stupid by some means, but for those papers to be locked up they must be important and they might contribute to something not in the electronic system. She entered one more pass-code and heard a click, but it wasn't from the door. Suddenly, the floor dropped from beneath Elaina and Clint, and they both fell.

A short scream escaped Elaina's lips as both of them fell quickly through darkness. The sense of falling without knowing the end was to Elaina like riding a roller coaster blindfolded. It all happened so fast she couldn't even see Clint above her. Before she could really panic there was a whistle through the air and she was jerked sharply to a sudden halt. Elaina looked up, Clint had grabbed her forearm, stopping her fall. Clint himself was holding on to his bow, a long wire was attached to the bow and went all the way up to the square of light above them about a hundred feet. Elaina dared a look below her and immediately regretted it, all she saw was darkness, pure black, that went on for what seemed like forever.

"Are you okay?" Clint asked her.

"I think so. You?"

"I'm fine, looks like you were right...about the trap doors," Clint said.

"Uh huh. This is _not_ how envisioned the start of our mission going," Elaina said.

"_What did you envision? That we would waltz in here and Durov would willingly hand himself over within the hour?"_ came Tony's sarcastic voice through the earpieces.

"No, but I didn't expect to be hanging at least two hundred feet above the ground by a wire," Elaina said harshly to Tony.

"_Ooh, I think that was a blow to you, Hawkeye,"_ Tony said.

Clint looked down at Elaina, "You really don't like me?" he asked jokingly in a mock-saddened voice.

Elaina sighed, she was cornered by these two, and Clint she did not mind, she'd put him in this mess. But Tony...Tony was getting on her last nerve.

"I like you plenty, Hawkeye, I just...I'm not too fond of heights,"

She really didn't want to reveal her fear of heights, especially with Tony listening, but she didn't want Clint to think this was his fault.

"_An eagle is scared of heights!? How ironic is that,_" Tony said laughing innocently, not really trying to hurt Elaina.

She'd had it with him, though.

"Can it and do your _job_, Stark," Elaina snapped.

"_Fine, but don't ask for any help from me,_"Tony said.

Elaina looked up at Clint.

"I'm really sorry about this. How do you think we're going to get out of this?" she asked casually.

"Is it me, my bow, or my skills you don't trust?" Clint asked.

"None of the above, I trust all of that and you," Elaina said. "I really don't like heights."

"So, you didn't just make that up to get Tony off your case?" Clint asked.

"No! I really am, I swear," Elaina said.

There was a short silence between them.

"In that case, I think I know how we're going to get back up there," Clint said nodding to the floor above. "Please don't freak out, I don't want to drop you."

Elaina hung her head, sighing in defeat.

"Okay," she said.

Clint moved his thumb over a button on his bow and pressed it, the wire started retracting pulling both of them up to the floor.

The floor was getting closer, the wire gradually getting shorter. When the two reached the square of light where they had fallen through Clint pulled himself over the edge of the floor, helping Elaina up after him. She saw him pluck the arrow he'd shot from the floor. The arrow's tip looked much like a head of a grappling hook, but it was harpooned in the ground.

"You don't know how grateful I am for your archery skills right now," Elaina said to Clint as he replaced his arrow to the quiver.

He smiled at her, picking another arrow from his quiver and loading his bow with it.

"I'm thankful for them now, too," Clint said.

"Thanks for saving me, I would have been screwed without you," Elaina said.

Clint laughed, "No problem."

"Let's just bust the stupid door and get those folders, I'm not getting dropped through the floor again," Elaina said drawing out her gun.

She walked over to the lab room the folders were stacked in, aimed her gun, and shot the glass wall beside the door. The entire panel shattered and fell in a loud clamor, crashing into tiny pieces against the ground. Elaina held her gun aloft -her ears still ringing from the loud sounds- walking through the hole she made in the glass, her boots crunching over the shattered pieces on the floor.

"_Uh, guys, we've got company,_" Natasha said.

"'We?'" was Elaina's reply.

"_You two,_" Natasha corrected.

Elaina looked to Clint, both locked eyes in dismay.

"How many?" Elaina asked in a low tone.

"_At least five, heavily armed, they're on the fourth floor heading down you two better get out of there,_" Natasha said.

"Shit," Elaina mumbled.

She quickly grabbed the folders off the table and zipped them up in her jacket. She turned, walking back out of the room, catching her arm on a fragment of glass in the doorway. She ignored the pain in her forearm and walked back to Clint.

"Let's go," Clint said when she reached him.

"We can't, there's only one way out," Elaina said her voice dropping to a whisper.

"But you told Fury..."

"I meant those," Elaina said swinging her good arm toward the lab room. "I'm sorry, but we're trapped."

The door to the room banged open, angered shouts in Russian following. Elaina and Clint ran, hiding behind two of the many pillars supporting the ceiling. They were in the cover of darkness, the light from the lab rooms not reaching near them. Elaina could hardly see, but was comforted by the fact that the people hunting them couldn't either. She pressed her back against the pillar trying to quiet her breathing because of the dead silence in the room.

"**K****rovʹ? Tam vse v krovi. Naĭdite ikh!"**_**Blood? There's blood. Find them!**_ a man whispered sternly in Russian.

Elaina's eyes widened, looking down at her arm. Where she had caught it on the glass was a long, thin cut that was, in fact, bleeding. Her head whipped to the side as she heard the slide of two objects together, she saw Clint drawing back the arrow in his bow. He didn't even need to give her a warning before aiming the arrow behind him at the door, she'd already seen that familiar gleam in his eyes even in the darkness. Clint released the arrow, having it sail across the room and collide with the floor. In seconds the place where the arrow landed exploded, flashing a silhouette of a person in the flames. Clint turned to the side and hid back behind the pillar, drawing and knocking another arrow. Elaina reloaded her gun before the room recovered from the explosion and turned back to silence.

When the flames from the explosion died, there were low whispers in Russian from other men. The blast had apparently only taken out one because there were four distinct voices. Elaina couldn't tell if any of the others had been injured, she'd like to bet they were. She stayed behind the pillar, as did Clint, until two of the men walked between the pillars. They didn't see Elaina or Clint, so Elaina nodded to Clint. One of the men walked a few steps forward, stopping right beside Elaina's pillar. Before he could see her she caught him in the throat with her fist, knocking his breath out. As he shielded his throat, coughing, Elaina swept his feet from under him throwing him to the floor. He reached for the assault rifle he carried, but she kicked it from his grasp into her own hands. She slammed the butt of the rifle against the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. Elaina turned in time to see Clint knock his assaulter out with his bow.

"You're welcome," Clint said suddenly.

Elaina's face must have betrayed her confusion.

"For your hand-to-hand practice," Clint clarified.

She smiled at him and then focused on the darkness in front of them.

"Two down, two to go," Elaina whispered to Clint and into her earpiece.

The two moved cautiously forward in the dark, their eyes alert for any slight shift in the darkness.

"I know it's not usually the best idea, but we should split up," Elaina whispered to Clint. "It'll just be easier."

"It wouldn't be a very good idea, for any other group, but seeing as we've both proven we can handle ourselves..." Clint said.

Elaina smiled, moving slowly away from him to the left. She tried to skirt the light coming from the rooms in an attempt to go undetected. She could no longer see Clint, both of their dark-colored S.H.I.E.L.D clothes made it easier to blend into the dark. Elaina moved to the far side of the room with her gun close to her, but still able to be wielded if necessary. When she was the furthest possible from the door she felt the presence of someone behind her. She knew it wasn't Clint, for two reasons, one being that they'd decided to split up then he should be on the other side of the room. The other reason being that even if they hadn't split up, Clint was only a few inches taller than her, and this presence _looming, _characteristics of someone _much_ taller than her. Weigh out every single possibility and outcome, then act; that is what Elaina had been taught. She did this, she knew a gun was pointed at her back, now all she had to do was act.

Disarm, whoever was behind her had the advantage. Elaina pivoted, seeing the barrel of the assault rifle and immediately grabbing it. Three shots were fired into the ground before she forced it out of the assaulter's hands and threw it across the room. She ducked, avoiding a fist over her head, and tucked into a roll evading some kicks at her. She rose halfway in a kneel, firing at her attacker. No sooner did she hear him crumple to the ground when she started running back across the room as fast as she could. Shots had been fired, whoever was hunting her and Clint were now aware the two knew they were being followed. Elaina didn't care that she could be a very easy target running in the light, Clint was in danger. She knew it was near impossible to sneak up on him and there was only one person after him, so why _did_ she fear for his safety?

Sounds of struggle threw Elaina to a halt in between two lab rooms. She looked around, trying to find the cause of the commotion even though she already knew what it was. Suddenly, she ducked, hearing something fly over her head. She turned with her arms up in a defensive position, in front of her stood a man a foot taller than her. He was heavily built, his shoulders wide and arms rippling with muscles. Elaina assumed he could take her out with just his hands, though he still carried a sleek, black pistol. Immediately, her mind started on its reflexes assessing the situation like an equation. Advantages came first, a major one being size. She was half the size of the man in front of her which meant she could move much faster, her agility was her advantage. Elaina jumped to her right, firing her gun at the man's legs. He shot blindly at her as she disappeared into the darkness, she wasn't stupid, she wouldn't fight in the light where she was easily seen. She noticed she had wounded the man, he was leaning over holding his bleeding calf. He chance was now she came out of the dark and kicked the man's gun out of his other hand. Before she could make her escape he grabbed her leg, throwing her off balance. Elaina crashed to the floor and quickly scrambled for her gun. When she didn't find it quickly enough for her liking she pushed herself off the ground in one fluid movement. She moved like a dancer, graceful and agile, blocking and dodging a few blows and then delivering her own blows. The man and Elaina went like this back and forth.

They pushed each other back between the lab rooms, moving a few inches with every blow. When Elaina finally laid eyes on Clint she wasn't happy with what she _did_ see. He was fighting with a man about his size and build, strong muscles, but quick reflexes. The man's gun laid a few feet from them, Clint's bow a foot from him. Clint's advantage was clear, he had his knife in one hand, the man had nothing but his own fists. If she'd had time to Elaina would have been overly curious about how Clint had been separated from his bow in the first place. She threw all her attention back to _her_ fight, her arms shuddering under the man's harsh blows she blocked. One of his blows she used against him, using his momentum to throw him back. He stumbled and she used it to throw a kick at him, but it was promptly blocked. In her peripheral vision Elaina saw Clint, who was on his knees now, dive for his bow. He'd already loaded it and pulled back the bowstring by the time he turned back on the other man. Elaina got behind her assaulter trying to gain the upper hand, but it seemed impossible at the moment. She grabbed his arm and he grabbed her long hair, striking her in the face, the pain was harsh, but bearable. He pulled her around so her back was to him, her feet barely touched the ground, so he was dragging her. She clenched her teeth together, holding back a scream of pain, she was blindly trying to kick him in the shins so he would let go. None of her blows landed. Her only relief from the hair-pulling came in a wave of confusion. A sharp pain struck her in the side of her thigh and she fell to the floor with a scream.

Elaina wasn't one to cry at just anything, she had a high pain tolerance. She'd been trained to resist pain, but whatever just hit her brought tears to her eyes. She had heard an odd twang seconds before the pain, the man had let go of her. To add to her confusion right after she hit the ground gunfire had crossed right above her head, where she _would_ have been standing. Elaina laid on her stomach trying to see what it was causing her so much pain before the man returned for her. When she saw the cause of her pain it only confused and hurt her -emotionally- even further. A long, sleek black shaft of a black-feathered arrow stuck up from her thigh, the silver tip half embedded in the muscle.

_Hawkeye..._

She looked to her side, trying to find Clint, with one thought in her mind: _He _never _misses_. She saw him, but was alarmed when she did, he was lying on his side on the floor, a thin line of blood running from the side of his head.

"Oh, my God! Hawkeye..." Elaina said to herself in a whisper trying to move closer to him, the pain making it hard.

She was determined, though, to see that he was alright so she pushed aside the pain and crawled, dragging her injured leg. Relief washed over her when she saw he was breathing, he'd only been knocked unconscious.

"Hawkeye's down," Elaina said into her earpiece. "He's fine, but unconscious. Two targets are loose, I'm injured and they'll be coming back for me next I'm sure. Stark, Widow, one of you needs to get down here and fast."

She searched, much to her discomfort, for her gun and eventually found it.

"_Are you alright, Elaina?_" Natasha asked.

"Minor injures, but if the targets come back I'm-"

Pain erupted in the side of her head and everything went black.

_ She walked down the dark aisle, searching for the light switch. She found it and flipped it on, bathing the place in florescent light from the large cylindrical bulbs above. Twenty-four long faces turned to look at her seeming to expect food. She smiled at the curious horses that sounded small whinnies and nickers as if to say "What's holding you?" Thirty minutes later the horses were happily __munching on grain and their water buckets in the process of being filled. Her senses were filled with the homey smells of the large stable; sweet hay, horses, and the sharp smell of grain. Others complained how "awful" barns smelt, she loved the smell it reminded her of her childhood. She walked over to one of the horses, a gorgeous shining black mare. _

"_How am I going to do it, girl?" she asked the mare._

_She placed her forehead against the mare's, the mare looked at her with knowledgeable eyes.  
"Do what?" the voice made her jump.  
She turned and saw him standing in the doorway. He was a few inches taller than her and a few years older, his dark hair complemented his tanned skin. She smiled.  
"Tell my father I'll be staying longer than expected, he's very strict about schedules. Especially when it comes to horses he doesn't understand why I love it so much."  
Maybe it _was _bad how easily lies came to her now.  
"That's unfortunate. Do you know what they say to me? 'Don't fall for the stable girl' ,'The stable girl? How could you love her?' but I don't care, I _have_ fallen for you and no one will change that."  
_Great,_ she thought,_ I'm that person who's going to change it._  
"Wanna go for a ride?" she asked.  
He smiled walking to the tack room at the back of the stable.  
"Always," he said going in the room.  
The smell of leather hit her as she entered the room after him,another smell she much enjoyed.  
Soon they mounted their horses -she the black mare and he a tall dapple gray gelding- and cantered off into the night. She raced him up a small hill in the mountain valley. She laughed, looking back over her shoulder, as her mare galloped past his gelding. The mare flicked her tail at the gelding as if to copy her rider's laughter in her own way. Eventually, he caught up and passed her, the gelding switching roles with the mare.  
_Now_, she thought as the gelding pulled further ahead,_ now are never, this is your chance. Take it!_  
She pulled the mare into a slow, collected gallop gathering her reins in one hand. She used her free hand to grab the small gun out of the saddlebags on the back of the caramel-colored, English saddle. Rightly, saddlebags shouldn't be on the back of an English saddle, but she'd made another lie, leaving him to believe he was going to get something lovely out of it. A perforated cylinder was attached to the end of he barrel of the gun, a silencer. Without having to think about it she aimed and fired the gun. The mare's ears flicked back at the muted shot, but nothing more, which was why she had chosen that mare above others, she was calm and sturdy. He fell from the gelding's back, hitting the hard ground below, the gelding shied and slid to a halt. She hadn't killed him, no, she'd been paid to make him suffer, she didn't like it, but she had to. She had hit him square between the shoulders, the smell of blood would soon attract the big mountain cats that strolled around the stable much too often. No German Shepherd guard dog at the barn would be able to protect him so far away as they were. She leaned down and grabbed the reins of the gelding that was much more skiddish than her mare, and led him back to the barn beside her mare with a set of reins in each hand.  
"Elaina...? Elaina! Elaina, are you okay? What happened!" _Natasha's concerned voice was blurry through her earpiece.  
Darkness engulfed her again, silence and darkness surrounded her. When she became somewhat semiconscious again she could feel herself being lifted off the ground. An arm was under her left arm, another under her knees, her torso went unsupported. She opened her eyes halfway and saw a light glow in front of them.  
_Tony.  
_"Clint..." she managed painfully for a second.  
"He's fine, Natasha got him," came Tony's voice, it sounded distant to her.  
She was already slipping back into the dark silence when the mental relief of Tony's words hit her. She let the dark and silence come willingly.

**There you go, I am working on finishing 4 asap...i will upload when I'm done. Oh, and excuse me if the Russian is wrong...I dont speak it**


	4. Differences

**Just finished this chapter last night, sorry for not uploading it then and leaving you on that tiny little chapter cliffhanger for so long. **

**Chapter 4- Differences**  
Light filtered through the unfamiliar room, filling it with the light and warmth of the rising sun. Elaina opened her eyes, taking this in, she had never been here before, but she knew she was in the Helicarrier's medical wing. She was laying in a soft white bed, she could feel her thigh wrapped tightly in a bandage. Looking around she spotted Bruce in a corner, his eyes on her.  
"Well, look who decided to wake up. Good morning, how do you feel?" Bruce asked smiling at her.  
Elaina let out a small self-humoring laugh, her head pounding.  
"I feel fine except my head feels like I head-butted a rock," she said with a pain-filled half smile.  
"It should, you've got a major concussion," Bruce said. "Nothing life-threatening unless you plan on falling out of another Quinjet."  
"Who told you?"  
"Who do you think? Tony couldn't resist. He tells me everything he finds remotely funny."  
He walked over to her and shined a light in both of her eyes, watching for the reaction or lack thereof. The light made her head throb until Bruce clicked it off.  
"It should heal on its own as long as you don't re-injure yourself. I'd give it a week or so until you can start acting normally without fear of re-injury," Bruce said.  
"Thank you, Dr. Banner," Elaina said.  
"Please call me Bruce you're making me feel old," Bruce said laughing.  
Elaina smiled, "Okay."

Bruce walked around the room, checking things on tablets. Elaina looked around, the place resembled a regular hospital with one minor difference. Outside the windows the sky moved as the Helicarrier flew over the clouds. She loved being on the ship, but sometimes she longed for the solidity of land and the vastness of the world. In simper terms; it got old after a while.

"How was Clint?" she finally asked.

"No worse than you," Bruce said looking up from one of the computers,"he didn't stay long. He made sure you were okay, I dismissed him and he left. He's probably up in his nest now."

"And don't even think about going up there," he added when he saw Elaina's expression.

There was silence between them which Elaina used to inspect the bandage around her thigh.

"It's not as bad as I'm sure it felt," Bruce said.

Elaina tried to smile, but faltered, running her fingers over the cloth.

"He failed to explain that in his short time here. Feel thankful, though, that it didn't explode," Bruce said trying to cheer her up.

"You saw?" she asked.

"Tony was smart enough not to touch it, let alone pull it out, so, yes, I saw," Bruce said.

Elaina looked around, she was alone with just Bruce for company. She was glad for it Bruce was good it her and she'd screwed up in front of the Avengers, he wouldn't give her crap for it. He knew she felt bad already, she knew this, he wouldn't want to make her feel worse.

"I screwed up, Bruce, I put everyone's life in danger and I don't even know if we got anything useful," Elaina said.

"Look at me," Bruce said.

Elaina heard his serious tone and complied, locking eyes with Bruce.

"You did _not _screw up, Elaina, I can't tell you what, but we found a multitude of useful information. No one was seriously injured, it's not like we haven't dealt with stuff like this before," Bruce said all seriousness coming to his face.

Elaina gave him a small, but genuine smile, shifting on the bed.

"Wait? You 'can't tell me what'? Why does Fury want to keep information from me? He asked me on this mission. He knows how keeping information from you guys ended last time," Elaina said.

"I know, but I can't change that, I wish I could," Bruce said.

Another day, that was how long Bruce told Elaina she would have to stay in the medical wing. Natasha eventually came to visit her, sitting on the edge of Elaina's bed. She told her that Durov _had_ been there, but when Clint detonated the arrow it sent the scientist running. He had escaped and Elaina knew she would have to locate him again. Since she was grounded on the Helicarrier for at least a week she would have plenty of time to do so. But while she was in the hospital wing she and Natasha shared stories from their pasts, mainly just to release the horrors in stead of letting them build. It was even better that both knew what the other felt because they had both been in similar situations at one point in their lives. They spent hours sharing their horror stories and with each hour became closer, understood each other more than they had before. Elaina tried walking around the medical wing to see if she was stable, she was, but she did so with a small limp. That much she had expected because her leg still hurt, but she couldn't take just sitting there; she had move or she would go insane.

Natasha eventually left, leaving Elaina alone, Bruce had gone back to his lab to work on something for Fury. The sun was just beginning to disappear below the clouds throwing an orange tint on everything in the sky. The door to the medical wing slid open and Elaina's eye jerked up from the window. She turned around, spotting Clint standing in the doorway.

"Can I come in?" he asked, unsure.

"I don't believe there are any rules that say I can tell you 'no'," Elaina said falling hopeless to a smile.

Clint smiled back, "You're walking," he observed.

Elaina nodded as Clint walked in, crossing the room to a chair not far from Elaina's temporary bed. She walked over herself and took a seat on the edge of the bed facing Clint, smoothing out her new S.H.I.E.L.D uniform Bruce had brought her earlier. The right pant leg fit oddly because of the large bandage around her thigh, there was a bulge in the fabric and it fit tightly.

"I was stupid," Clint said suddenly.

"Why?" Elaina had no clue what he meant.

"I should never have agreed to split up," he said looking at the floor.

"We would never have found those men if we hadn't-"

"And I would have never hurt you!" Clint exclaimed suddenly looking up at her.

Elaina sat there, her lips slightly parted in shock, tribulation wrinkling her brow. She had never heard him raise his voice like that. She pursed her lips and then sighed, dropping her gaze to the floor.

"And don't say that I didn't because I can clearly see I did," he added.

"Clint, the arrow wound in my thigh will heal, but a bullet to the head wouldn't have," Elaina said getting sick of him berating himself.

"I don't understand."

"You did hurt me, but you also saved my life. When you shot me the arrow made me fall to the ground and then gunfire crossed over my head a second later -where I _would_ have been standing. I would have been right in the line of fire otherwise," she said looking into his blue eyes.

The sun dropped below the horizon, throwing the room into darkness before the lights switched on automatically. Clint's eyes were still locked on her when she adjusted to the light. He seemed to be trying to figure out if she was lying or telling the truth. He just shook his head and changed the subject.

"I saw that Nat was talking to you," he said.

"We were talking about jobs we had worked before S.H.I.E.L.D came into the picture."

"You know I was an assassin too, Nat's not the only one who would understand."

Elaina gave him a half-smile, "Of course. However, it is different ,though, being a woman and an assassin than being a guy and an assassin."

Clint looked confused at what she had just said, "I don't see how it could be too different."

Elaina knew he meant no harm, but she could hardly fight the horrible memories that were attacking her mind. The strobing, flashing lights, the loud noise, they all hit her head like a freight train. She closed her eyes, trying to flush out the images pounding in her head. Finally, she managed to push them aside and focus on the present. It would be hard to explain how different they were, so she opted just to cut to the chase.

"How many of your assignments involved you having to sleep with your target?" Elaina said almost bitterly.

Clint was clearly taken by surprise at the words that had just left her mouth, his eyes widening in shock.

"Wh-what?" he said caught off-guard.

He stumbled over his own words before he managed to answer her.

"None," was his repy.

Elaina nodded, half-expecting it, looking at the ground.

"Elaina..." Clint said softly.

Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes when she looked back up, but she didn't look at Clint, she couldn't.

"Elaina...are you alright?" Clint insisted.

"It was basically a requirement at my old agency. My director seemed to think that since we were women it would be easy for us to just say a few fake-drunken words to a man that had downed more real drinks than we'd had fake as to gain his semiconscious trust. To let him drive us to his house where we would give him whatever he desired and then, when he was asleep, put a bullet in his back."

Elaina's voice had dropped near to a whisper by the end. Clint was looking at her with saddened eyes and a frown.

"That's how I became my director's best agent," she continued tearing her gaze away from him, she couldn't bear that look of pity. "I had the looks, the way with words, and I was able to act above all things."

There was silence between them, silence Elaina didn't want to fill. Clint suddenly hung his head briefly before looking up at Elaina.

"Tony," he said in realization. "Oh, God, that's why you snapped at him! I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

"It's alright, Clint."

"Did he know?"

"No, no, I'm telling you this in confidence that you won't tell anyone. Well, except for Tasha."

"Of course I wouldn't. Even if you hadn't asked me not to, I still would have _never _said anything to _anyone."_

"I know I can trust you, thanks," Elaina said a smile replacing the tears.

"Trust...that's pretty strong," Clint said smiling back at her.

"We're a team, we're based on trust aren't we? We should be," Elaina said.

"We are," Clint said getting up. "Get some rest, Fury wants you to get right on tracking Durov again. He told me to tell you only if Bruce was going to clear you and if you seemed okay. You're acting and looking fine to me."

He walked out of the medical wing; leaving her to wonder what _that _was supposed to mean.

**Pretty short chapter by my standards, but it seemed fit to end it here. I will upload as soon as chapter five is done, but with school starting I've no idea when that will be hopefully soon. Hope you enjoyed it :)**


	5. Searching for Answers

**Long chapter + no time to write it = long update time. The only math I enjoy -.- anywho...here you guys are quick update hope you like it**

**Chapter 5- Searching for Answers**

"Alright, I want you to come back in two days so I can check your healing progress, but otherwise you're free to go,"Bruce said.

Elaina slid off the white-sheeted bed to the polished floor.

"Thanks, Bruce, you made me like hospitals a little bit more," she said with a short laugh.

"You're welcome. Remember, no falling out of planes and _no_ following Clint up into the rafters."

Elaina smiled, still taking him seriously, as she walked to the door, still slightly limping.

"I won't. Wouldn't want to worry you or anything stressing like that. Good-bye, Bruce."

"Good-bye," he said with a smile, shaking his head in defeat.

She walked down the hallway of the Helicarrier, heading to her room. The last thing she wanted was more sleep, but she did want to take a shower -which she hadn't done in longer than usual- and fix her hair and make-up, even though she hardly wore any of it. Thirty minutes later Elaina was finished with a very careful shower and was in the process of brushing out her wet, dark brown hair. Even though she had recovered too much activity still made her lightheaded forcing her to stop. She knew she wouldn't be needed on the bridge for a while, Bruce would see to that, so she decided to do a little research of her own. Logging on to her personal laptop she pulled up a previously visited website about a political group named "For Their Futures." Then by cross-referencing their name over a trusted search engine she found what she had been looking for. The group had been accused of being involved in an assassination scandal eight years ago. Though it wasn't news to her, the fact that the public thought they could have even remotely been involved threw hope into the matter. Elaina was deep into her findings when the door to her room slid open.

"May I come in?" came the familiar voice.

She turned in her desk chair to face the doorway.

"Captain Rogers, what a surprise, of course come in," she said with a smile.

He smiled back at her, flashing white teeth, "I wanted to see for myself that you were all right."

"Oh, well, I'm fine, thank you," she said the smile sticking to her face.

"I'm not intruding am I?"

"No! No, of course not, you're fine. You can sit if you'd like," she said gesturing to an extra chair.

"Thank you," he said sitting down.

"Is that something for S.H.I.E.L.D? If you don't mind me asking," he added seeing her screen.

"No, it's sort of a personal mission, it's about this group called For Their Futures. I wouldn't expect you -or anyone here for that matter- to know about them, they like to stay out of the spotlight as much as they can."

"So why are you interested in them, then?"

Elaina looked toward him for a second before looking back at her screen.

"They were accused of being involved in the assassination, some way or another, of Maria Atkinson eight years ago. She was about to expose them for some pretty bad things. She was at a press conference about to reveal what she found when she was killed."

"Politics haven't changed," Steve said. "Was she right?"

"She did her research and she _never_ played dirty," Elaina said. "What ever her reasons were she had to have been right. Especially, if they wanted to kill her for it."

"Did you know her personally?"

"No, but I've done _my_ research. She was a lawyer for a year and a half before she moved into politics. No one can really prove FTF had anything to do with it because it was so long ago."

"You don't have technology for that?" Steve asked.

Elaina chuckled, "No, you weren't asleep _that_ long; we haven't figured out time travel just yet."

"I meant videos or recordings. I think I would know about time travel," Steve smiled.

Elaina's eyes widened, her mouth actually falling open and her gaze fixed on the floor.

"Elaina? Elaina, are you alright?" Steve asked, concern rising in his voice.

Elaina suddenly snapped out of her stupor when she realized she was scaring Steve to death.

"Videos! You're a genius!" she exclaimed.

"Stark and Dr. Banner are the geniuses, I think I hardly qualify..."

"Please, Captain, you are very smart-"

"Please call me by my name, I heard that Dr. Banner had to tell you the same," Steve added in.

"Either way, thank you, you might have just changed this case."

"Glad I could help. Listen, I have to go, Fury wanted me for some thing or another. You really do think highly of the six of us, don't you?" Steve said with a smile.

"I guess I do. Why _shouldn't _I? You saved the world and you're all basically legends."

"The only thing legendary about me is the city I come from," Steve countered being humble as always.

For a second he stared straight at Elaina, neither of them saying anything.

"Weren't you about to-?" she started.

"Yeah," he said quickly, starting to walk out of the room.

Right before he walked out he stopped, seeming to consider what had just been said and then shook his head, leaving. It was as if a conversation similar or exactly like that had come up to him before.

The next afternoon Elaina sat in front of a computer on the bridge of the Helicarrier. When her previous searches turned up negative for any of Dr. Durov's known hideouts she started to use everything she knew about him to run a general search. She used aliases, passports, cameras, credit cards, anything that could be traced or link him to a location somewhere on the planet. Right now he might as well have been on Mars. Eventually, the trained assassin became furious with the lack of information she was getting and threw a harsh, Russian curse word into the air.

"Somehow I think that wasn't a very positive word," the smooth words came beside her.

"A very good guess, Mr. Stark," Elaina replied as if she were teaching him. "You've just passed Russian 101."

"Good. Now I'll be able to understand all this screwed up information Jarvis keeps coming up with," Tony replied sitting in a chair next to her.

Elaina laughed and turned to face him. She figured he would have Jarvis looking for things as well, but didn't think he would find as much as he was letting on.

"What kind of 'stuff'?" she asked, trying not to sound overly desperate.

"Nothing I'm sure you don't already know, definitely not a location," Tony said noticing her hinting.

"I can't believe he can be so, well, basically invisible. He was never that knowledgeable to be this elusive before," Elaina said.

Memories of cold, elaborate social gatherings filled her mind. Road signs finally remembered flashed in front of her eyes, but the words on them still remained blurry. She was close to remembering a specific place, yet she couldn't quite grasp a name. Trying harder to remember only helped the memory slip from her mind. When her eyes refocused on the present she realized she had been string blankly at Tony.

"Alright, space wonder, come back to Earth," he said.

Elaina shook her head as if trying to cast away the thought.

"What?" she asked stupidly.

"You were talking about Dr. Doom, wherever he is, being dim but never elusive," Tony joked with Durov's name. "Then you just started staring off into space."

"Sorry, I was trying to remember if there was anything I missing, but I couldn't think of anything."

Five hours later Elaina still sat in front of the unyielding computer screen. Her eyes were getting heavy, and she could barely keep them open. The moon had just started to rise in the dark sky, casting its ghastly light into the Helicarrier's windows. Slowly, she started to nod off at the desk, she tried to fight it, but to no avail. In minutes she found herself resting her head on her hand with her elbow on the desk. Closing her eyes for just a second she fell into a semi-peaceful rest. It was only a minute or so before she was woken.

"Elaina?" the voice roused her.

Groggily she opened her eyes and lifted her head from her stiff hand.

"Ow," she mumbled rubbing her wrist.

She looked up to see Clint standing behind her.

"Thanks for waking me up," she said with a sheepish smile.

"You should be resting, like Bruce said, but not here," he replied.

Elaina laughed, shifting in the chair.

"I didn't really expect to fall asleep, it just happened. Been watching me have you?" she joked. "Where'd you come from, the rafters?"

He gave her a side smile, "How'd you know?"

"You _are_ you."

Clint smiled, starting to walk away, "Go back to your room, Elaina," he said casually.

She stared after him, every time they met he proceeded to confuse her even more. However, she did not end up going back to her room that night; she stayed on the bridge searching in vain for a man she was convinced she would never find.

The second time she fell asleep on the bridge her head was resting on her arm on the space in front of the computer. The road signs in her head reappeared, finally giving her a name to them. The biggest blue sign read "Now leaving Albuquerque." That one name triggered a whole plethora of other memories that crowded into her head at the same time. A small, seemingly normal, house on the edge of a desert. Near-by was a small cattle farm and withering, brown fields that had no doubt once been prosperous. The curious temperature was crisp and there was no water in sight for miles, the sun glared down between gray clouds reflecting off the dirt road. Elaina's eyes snapped open as she sat up in the chair at the desk. She looked around the bridge, trying to locate Fury quickly. Why hadn't she thought of it before? What had caused her to suddenly remember the name that had eluded her so shortly ago? She saw Fury at the table to the back of the bridge , getting up she started to walk that way.

"New Mexico!" she exclaimed when she had gotten closer to him.

"What?" Fury said caught off-guard.

"New Mexico, that's where he is. I haven't check yet, but I'm ninety-five-percent sure," Elaina replied.

"How'd you find this?"

"I didn't find it, sir, I finally remembered, it should be a small ranch an hour out of Albuquerque it's very secluded and we probably won't be able able to get too close by air."

"Why haven't we gotten wind of this before, if there was a threat?" Fury asked.

Elaina knew what he was implying, but not the answer to his question.

"I don't know, sir."

"Fine, we'll set course for New Mexico the minute you give me some hard evidence he's there."

"Thank you, sir."

Now that she had a possible location, a name, finding hard evidence couldn't have been easier, or so Elaina thought. Satellite turned up clean, so did radar and thermal imaging. She had found the actual ranch by calculating average speed and the time she knew it took to get there. That hadn't been the problem, the problem was that there was no sign the place had been touched in the past ten years. The first lights of dawn were just appearing through the puffy, now-orange clouds around the Helicarrier. This was when Elaina realized, despite her short, information-filled naps, how tired she really was. She started to set the satellite images back, in her jumbled, tired mind she had forgotten to try arrival. If they were there a car had to have dropped them off or was there and hidden. A few days back, there was an image of a black suburban parked in front of the house, the license plate clearly visible. Elaina smirked before proceeding to check the license plate on the SUV. Seconds later, a name popped up on her screen, a name of one of Durov's known associates in the States.

"Not so clever now, are you?" Elaina mumbled in sheer satisfaction.

After showing Fury her "hard evidence" the Helicarrier was on its way to New Mexico in minutes.

"What's the ETA, sir?" she asked.

"Three and a half days, at the least, we're a few miles off the East Coast and hopefully won't run into any trouble. Now get some rest, Agent Barton," he replied.

"Yes, sir," she replied sullenly, walking toward her room.

"You didn't sleep at all last night , did you?" the sudden voice turned on instincts that made Elaina turn in defense. She sighed, dropping her head in defeat when she saw it was only Clint.

"You have to stop _doing_ that," she scolded him.

The produced a laugh from the archer that took her by surprise.

"One of these days, someone's going to turn around and either punch or stab you," Elaina smiled. "I'm not kidding."

"Sorry," he apologized with a smile.

"And, no, I didn't sleep last night- well, I did for a little, but then I remembered where Durov could have gone. He was there," Elaina continued.

"Where?" Clint asked curiously.

"New Mexico."

"New Mexico?" Clint said in shock. "Yeah, I remember New Mexico, I almost shot god. Don't think it would have done much, though."

Elaina smiled at his mention of a formerly-banished Asgardian.

"Another one still needs an arrow through his eye," Clint added.

Elaina could hear the scant harshness behind his words, she couldn't imagine how much he hated Loki for what the trickster had done to him. Not being able to control you actions, doing things against your will, she couldn't know how hard it had to be. She also knew how much Clint liked doing his own thing, so not being able to must have been torture.

"Get some rest, please, you're zoning out," came Clint's voice.

"Oh, sorry, yeah I'm going," Elaina said walking away.

The sun was right above the Helicarrier, casting odd shadows into the corridors. Elaina sat on the edge of her bed looking out of the window and letting her mind float with the passing clouds. She shifted her eyes over a few feet where she had view of the Number Three engine of the massive, flying aircraft carrier. She could remember, in fine detail, that horrible day when all hell had broken loose. The engine had exploded in a huge cloud of fire and smoke and the force of the blast had rocked the whole ship. She had been sitting in her room when it happened, she had seen the unauthorized Quinjet landing on the carrier.

_Picking up her sidearm she ran out of her room to find the whole of the crew in a bout of panic. Somehow she made her way to the bridge where the core of the chaos was. A flash of gold and red flew past the window, Tony was going to the engine to try and fix it. She had no doubt he would, but she was worried about the safety of those on board._

"_Take us to the water!" Fury called._

"_We're flying blind, navigation's recalibrating after the engine failure,_" _one of the S.H.I.E.L.D members piloting the Helicarrier said._

"_Is the sun coming up?" Fury asked._

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Then put it on the left!" Fury exclaimed. "Get us over water, one more turbine goes down and we drop!"_

_Elaina was surprised how much they depended on technology and how lost they were without it._

"_Agent Barton!" Fury called._

_Elaina looked around first, as she usually did, before realizing her mistake._

"_Yes, sir?" she replied loudly over the many panicked voices._

"_Go after Barton," he said._

"_Clint?" Elaina clarified._

"_Yes."_

"_Are you sure, sir? I mean, do you think I'll be able to-"_

"_You'll be fine. Right now you're the only one available that can match him, now do so before he causes anymore damage."_

"_Yes, sir," she replied taking out her sidearm._

_She got off the bridge, moving quickly down the corridors looking for any sign of Clint or Loki's lackeys. Then she wondered what the rest of the Avengers -besides Tony- were doing so as they were not "available" to chase down one of their own. That thought struck concern inside her as she swiped her access key to open the first door leading away from the bridge. When the door closed behind her she realized she was staring at a group of the invaders...along with Clint._

_ Elaina backed against the door, her gun dropping to her side. She looked behind her to make sure the door had locked securely. When she looked back she was staring down the tip of an arrow._

"_It will take too long to kill you, move aside," the smooth words came from Clint._

No, not Clint, this isn't Clint, it's Loki, _Elaina's conflicted thoughts ran._

_Her face wrinkled into a frown to see him like this, doing these horrible things against his will. She shook her head slowly, pressing her back against the door._

"_I won't let you," she said._

"_Just shoot her!" egged one of the men._

_The former-assassins locked eyes, she could see that he hadn't slept, the area around his eyes -still filled with the glittering color of the Tesseract- was red. She calculated that into her short list of advantages. She knew he didn't need a weapon to kill her, the short-sleeved black shirt he wore highlighted the muscles in his arms from years of wielding a bow. Ultimately, he was stronger than her, _much_ stronger. The first blow came faster than she expected, ducking she evaded an arm over her head. She struck back blocking his arms and sending her knee into his stomach. The archer stumbled backwards, drawing his bow loaded with a trick arrow. Elaina threw herself to the side hearing the arrow cut through the air beside her. She got closer to him, knocking the bow from his hand with one well-placed kick. It didn't seem to hinder him, however, and in stead he drew out a short-bladed knife. In another flurry of locking arms and lashing out with legs, Elaina felt a searing line of pain cross her forearm when she got a little too close to Clint. A long, bleeding gash ran down her arm where he had swiped the knife across her arm. She had been wrong, apparently lack of sleep didn't seem to be effecting his ability to fight with his normal speed and agility. She recoiled holding her injured arm out of his reach and before she knew what had happened he had his arm around her neck. She fought against him to no use only to get her neck bruised. He let go of her for a second before bringing his arm against her head, knocking her almost to the point of unconsciousness. She hit the ground in a heap, her body partially supported by the corner of the two walls meeting. She could feel herself being lifted half-way up by one of the lackeys and that something was being pressed against her neck._

"_No, I wasn't lying when I said it'd take to long, come on, we got more important people to kill," she vaguely heard Clint's voice._

_She was dropped back on the floor where she fell unconscious._

After that Elaina remembered the failure of the Number One engine and the Helicarrier starting to fall from the sky had woken her up. She had made it back to the bridge when Tony had restarted the third engine and the panic had died down. Of course, the aftermath had been horrible, the people they had lost and the Avengers had been scattered. She got off of the bed, remembering what day it was, starting to walk down the hallways to the medical wing. Halfway to the wing she realized what she was doing. Turning around she started to walk toward Bruce's lab in stead, she had no idea why she would think Bruce would stay in the medical wing. Few S.H.I.E.L.D members were roaming the halls which led her to believe most were on the bridge helping their course to New Mexico. She wondered what Durov could possibly want there, that lab was by far the least equipped for his tasks. Of course, she knew he would have gotten as far away from the Russian lab as possible, but to go to the one hideout that couldn't meet his needs gave her the idea that something was wrong. Nothing was wrong with the location she had found, she knew that much, something was wrong with the reasons she thought he had for being there. He wasn't trying to perfect his weapon, that was for sure. It worried her that he might already _have_ the weapon and was planning its first use in the United States. The chilling thought accompanied her all the way to the Research Level.

The door to the lab slid open, she could see Bruce in the far corner looking at one of the suspended screens. He finished whatever it was he was doing before turning to face the door.

"Elaina, come in, I was just getting ready to call for you," Bruce said.

"You thought I wouldn't remember because it's a head injury?" Elaina joked.

Bruce smiled, "I don't think anything could effect your memory."

"Was that a complement or a reference to me being hard-headed?" Elaina smiled.

Bruce gave a short laugh, "I meant it as a complement."

"I know, I was just joking with you," Elaina said.

"How do you feel? You seem fine to me," Bruce asked.

"My head still hurts a little, but not as much as it did before, only more when I put too much pressure on it. Otherwise, I feel fine."

"'Hurts'? How?"

"On a scale of zero to ten it's about a six," Elaina explained.

"That's surprising, here, can you look at me?" he asked.

She looked at Bruce, letting him look her over for a few minutes.  
"Wow, you're a fast healer," he said.

"I always have been, I broke my arm once when I was seven and healed in nearly half the time the doctors said I would. Of course, they still made me wear a brace until their assumed time had passed, but it was just a precaution," she said. "They never could explain it, it just _was_."

"That's interesting and completely believable right now. You're showing signs of a minor concussion which is remarkable considering its only been two days and the severity before was so high."

His statement made Elaina feel better about going to New Mexico.

"Will I be able to go on the New Mexico mission?" she asked curiously.

"How long until we get there?"

"Three days at the least and I promise I'll be extremely careful when we get there," Elaina half-begged.

She knew if Bruce didn't want her to go that she wouldn't go because of how much Fury trusted him.

"I think you'll be fine, and, besides, if Fury wants you on the mission -unless you're lying in a bed half dead- I don't think I could question his orders," Bruce said smiling.

"Of course you could, he trusts your judgment and even more so now," she said.

"Maybe that's true, but they still need you desperately for the mission. Just, please, get some rest every night, okay? No staying up through the night on the bridge in front of a computer," he said.

Elaina sighed, "I'm guessing Tony wasn't the one who told you that."

"You would be correct."

Elaina nodded, "Okay, if that's how he wants to play it...Alright, good-bye, Bruce, and thanks again."

"Bye, Elaina, don't kill Clint you might end up hurting yourself."

She smiled as she walked out the door, waving behind her back at Bruce.

**Sorry for any grammar/spelling/misuse of words I had no time to proof read this and just want you guys to stop your waiting :)**

**And since the DVD came out (its permanent place of residence is in my computer) I wanted to add another scene I enjoy in the movie (yes Fury getting angry at the stupid pilot who has no clue in which direction oceans are even if the sun is rising...) and added some Loki-possessed-Clint in it to make it even better.**

**Well, you all probably know she's not going to kill clint...uh-oh spoiler...haha not really. So hope you all enjoyed it might be a while before the next update but I promise it will be worth it and youll get some more sight into elaina's past and for all those hawkeye fans, yes, even more hawkeye :) I know how you guys feel. Will work as fast as possible :P ~SHSK**


	6. Secrets

**A/N: Ugh! Finally! I finished this chapter a few days ago but was still too busy to upload then forgot when I had time the other day so finally here it is, but it is a little short in my terms. Definitely information filled, little more sight into Elaina's past for those who enjoy that. And more imortantly...more hawkeye, of course XD so here you guys are**

_**Chapter 6- Secrets **_

It completely stumped her why he would worry about her so much. He knew what she could do, what she _had_ done, so to be worried seemed...well, it seemed unnecessary. However, that is what _Elaina_ thought, she had no clue what Clint's reasons were for doing just about anything. All her life men had confused her with the way they acted and she had never been able to understand them Clint was certainly no exception. She had a plan, though, she just hope it would work. It was an hour or so after noon, which meant most of S.H.I.E.L.D's agents were back traversing the halls to get where ever they were needed for a new shift. Elaina usually spent her different shifts either working with the computers on the bridge or preparing new agents for duty. When she had free time she spent it in the training room honing her already near-perfect skills because she was convinced she was never good enough. Her once-focused intentions swayed and sent her walking down into the lower levels of the Helicarrier. She didn't notice where she was walking until she found herself standing in the infamous detention level.

The dimly-lit level of the Helicarrier gave off the sense it should have: evil. The specialized glass and steel cell in which the mischievous god had been held in had been replaced after he had sent Thor barreling toward the hard ground below in it. Elaina looked around, having the sense that she shouldn't be here, but she was plastered to the floor by the horrid thoughts she associated with this place. The scene played like a movie in front of her eyes before she shut it out of her mind completely. Loki could be worlds away, but she wasn't about to let a memory of him, and things he had done, ruin her day.

"Why are you torturing your mind down here?" the voice came from the far end of the otherwise silent room.

Elaina followed the voice to see Steve leaning in the doorway, she looked back at the cell.

"I didn't mean to come down here, I was looking..." she caught herself. "Well, I have no clue where I was actually going."

"Really?" Steve said with a smile.

Elaina laughed, "I'm getting old, can't even remember what I was doing," she joked.

"I know how you feel," Steve said.

"You're not that old, Steve," Elaina said reassuringly.

"No, just out of time."

"Out of time," Elaina agreed. "So why are you down here?"

"I was walking back to my room, I saw you walking down here and I got curious," he replied.

"Oh, not worried about me are you?"

Steve chuckled, "Are you joking? I'm pretty sure you can more than handle yourself, Elaina. I was just wondering why you would come down here."

Elaina smiled, "Thank you, at least someone is treating me like I can fend for myself."

"You do seem to be a magnet for danger, though."

"I gotta get going," Elaina said kindly, turning away from the cell.

Her boots rang on the metal walkway as she exited the level, hoping to get away from the dark thoughts of the place.

Now that Elaina realized she had no clue how to find Clint she realized how large the Helicarrier really was. Each corridor led to an even longer hallway and each door led to a corridor, it was an endless cycle of walking. It wasn't as f she were lost, because she wasn't, it was just because she had no clue where to start. She supposed she could have started with the rafters, not like she could have gotten up there without Bruce knowing about it. She walked aimlessly, delving deeper and deeper into the Helicarrier's interior where hardly anyone was. Her footsteps started to bounce off the walls magnifying sharply down the hallway she was walking through.

"Elaina!" the simple call became a roar as the sound waves bounced back and forth in the narrow passage.

She smiled, stopping and turning around to face the origin of the echoing call. Walking back a few steps she used her agile reflexes to slide down the thin railing of the tall staircase she had come up moments before. At the end of the rail she dropped to her feet in front of Clint.

"Bruce said you were looking for me," he said, completely nonchalant about her stunt.

"I am, well, I _was_," she replied.

"You walk fast," Clint stated. "I didn't think I'd ever catch you."

"Force of habit, sorry."

"No, it's fine, so what did you want to see me for?"

"I wanted to propose a deal."

"Oh no..." he replied with a smile. "Okay, go on."

"It sounds stupid, trying to bribe you, but it seems to be my only option. I'm glad you're concerned about me, but since I was sixteen people have been treating me like at any moment I'm going to shatter into a million pieces. That changed when I became an assassin, people finally treated me like an actual threat and now I'm back to that fragile teenager image. It's making me nervous, when people worry so much I feel like I'm going to get shot," Elaina said. "I don't want to feel that way whenever I'm around you."

"I'm sorry I come off as that, alright, what's the deal," he said shifting his stance.

"The deal is you stop worrying about me so much-"

"I don't think I can just-"

"Let me finish," Elaina said. "If you stop _openly _worrying about me then, for every day it takes us to get to New Mexico, I'll tell you something I've never told anyone about me."

"And how do you know I'll agree to this?"

"Because, I know you're curious about me. I can see it, Clint, I read people."

There was a pause between the two.

"Before I say yes, which I'm sure you read off me like a book, I want to know how you think I can stop worrying about you."

"You can worry about me all you want, tell whomever, just make sure I don't hear about it," Elaina said starting to walk away.

"When does this deal start?" Clint asked.

"Tomorrow."

The sun was starting its decent through the many layers of clouds when Elaina returned to the bridge. She checked the computer once more before heading back to her room where she laid out on her bed staring at the ceiling. It wasn't long before she gave into her exhaustion and found herself asleep. Once she had fallen into that dark void of semi-consciousness she remembered why she had always had trouble sleeping, why New Mexico didn't only mean good things to her.

_Politics had never interested her, the cut-throat business was even more dangerous than the profession she would take up. She stood in the corner of the medium-sized room packed with people who stood around chatting with one another. Her eyes were on the young woman at the front of the room that looked like a slightly-older version of herself. The finely-dressed woman, who appeared to be in her early twenties, sat behind a long table alongside two men dressed in pressed, black suits._

"_We will begin the discussion in five minutes, I repeat: five minutes, please have your questions ready. Thank you," the person on the microphone had a shaky, unsure voice._

_In minutes she knew why, a loud crack silenced the room in a split second and the woman at the table fell from her seat. Time seemed to slow around her as she realized that loud crack had been gunfire; she ran from the corner of the room to the front, the meeting falling to chaos. She knelt down beside the woman, who she saw bleeding horribly._

"_Maria," she said softly, tears sliding down her face._

"_Lana," the woman replied. "What-what are you doing here?"_

_More gunfire filled the room causing more screams of panic to erupt from the crowd trying to get out._

"_Please, Maria, you have to stay awake. You're going to be alright, okay? You're going to be fine," she said as she put pressure on Maria's wound. _

_Another shot rang out and she felt searing pain between her shoulders. Seconds later she blacked out, worried only for Maria's life._

Elaina sat up with a sharp gasp, suddenly back in her room, back somewhere safe. Trails from tears laced down her face where she had been crying in her sleep. That memory -or so she thought- had been barred from her mind for a long time, but now it had come back to haunt her. That day had to have been the single, worst day of her life and the reason why Thor wasn't her forethought of New Mexico. She looked out of the window to see that she had slept through the night and well into the next day. She was glad, though, because she was no longer tired like before and the throbbing in her head had subsided significantly. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she pulled on her boots and did up her hair in a messy, high-ponytail. The bridge was already busy with normal traffic of the morning, with the many agents dressed in their navy uniforms checking the computers. Some carried manila folders filled with papers to Fury -who stood at his usual spot by the flat screen computers slightly to the back of the bridge- before moving away empty handed. Elaina stood at the back by the glass-topped table with the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem and watched the normal buzz unfold. She could immediately pick out new agents; they would move around nervously with hands held near their bodies and frantic eyes that tried not to make contact with senior officers or Fury. One of her fine points, like she had so welcomely informed Clint, was reading people whether it be by body language or speech. That was probably why the archer interested her from the first day she met him, she had trouble reading him and she had never before had trouble reading someone. Natasha was just as intriguing for the same reason, but on a different level because she had opened up to Elaina, Clint, however, she knew near nothing about.

After a small meal Elaina wandered back to the bridge feeling not at all like herself. That nightmare had been real and it had jarred her inside, the feeling of loss overwhelmed her. She once again checked the activity around the farm, which was minimal. No one had come or gone and there was hardly any movement around the place that was both concerning and relieving. She stared blankly at the screen, blocking out everything around her, the screams from her memory echoed through her head. Enraged, she stood up and walked forcibly to the table at the back of the bridge where she had been earlier. In a day and a half they would be at New Mexico, she had to find a way to move away from the past if she wanted to focus on the present. She would be vital to the success of the mission, but if she could not deliver she would be putting the Avengers in danger once more, this time with higher stakes and more consequence. Her own safety was one thing, the safety of those who trusted her to guide them away from unknown danger that only she knew was something drastically different.

"Elaina? Are you feeling okay?" the voice brought her from her thoughts.

"You know, its getting very disturbing how you can find me so easily," she said smiling.

"It's not that hard to find anyone on this ship."

"Except for you," Elaina added.

"Except for me," Clint agreed.

"So, what do you want to know?" Elaina asked in a less-than-serious tone.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, I'll respect that."

"It's fine."

"You didn't do this just to 'bribe' me...did you?" he said more than asked.

"Am I that transparent?" Elaina asked with a weak, self-mocking smile.

"No, I've been in a similar situation," Clint replied.

Elaina shifted in her seat, but was not at all uncomfortable in this situation.

"The only way I'm going to be able to move past the memories that keep haunting me is to tell someone and you're the only one I trust enough to tell," Elaina said.

"I'm glad you trust me so much, but I'm not a therapist, I don't know how to handle this."

"I don't need a therapist, I just need someone who _understands_."

"Okay, so have you told anyone why you became an assassin?"

"No, but do you really want to know that?"

"Yes, it's not something a child says they want to be when they grow up, there's usually a reason."

_Of course he would pick the one thing that hurts to tell,_ she thought.

She was glad for it, though, it was the first thing she wanted to move past before New Mexico.

Sitting back in the chair Elaina started to tell him about the worst day of her life.

"I had a sister four years my senior that was the best thing in my life. She was my best friend and was there for me through every bad day to every triumph. After our parents ran out on us when I was fourteen she was the only person I ever trusted, the only one I felt I could rely on without it ending in disappointment.

"When she was twenty she decided to go into politics, I warned her against it, but it was what made her happy. She was going against this man that everyone seemed to love, but the group he supported were corrupt turncoats. All she wanted was for people to know who they were supporting, she never liked playing dirty, only honestly. Some dirt on them surfaced, she found it and played it against them, or was going to. Somehow they got wind of it. A press conference was held in New Mexico a few weeks later, I usually never went to them, but she begged me and I caved. Five minutes before they started talking she was assassinated. The assassin was skilled, he covered it by, one, not taking the head shot, and, two, he kept shooting into the crowd to make it seem like a random shooting. He targeted the first people to respond and help, one of which was myself. I was looking over my sister when I was shot in the back of my shoulder and passed out. I woke up hours later in the hospital; the doctors said they tried to save her, but couldn't.

"Not long after that I started training for the chance of revenge, slowly turning my body into a functioning weapon, hoping I would be able to do the only thing that mattered anymore: kill the person who took my sister from me. A year after her death I had tracked down the assassin, a hired gun, and was moving in on him. Since it was my first it was a little sloppy, I took some hard hits, but I managed to kill him. The agency I worked for before S.H.I.E.L.D took interest and by the time I turned eighteen they had employed me. How I got here is a completely different story I don't want to tell now because of its length."

When Elaina finished and looked back at Clint she saw him looking at her with a somber expression, one that had taken a complete change from earlier.

"Elaina, I'm sorry, I had no idea-"

"You told me I didn't have to tell you something I didn't want to, I wouldn't have told you if it bothered me," she replied.

"No, I'm sorry about your sister, I know what it's like to lose a sibling."

"Not many people do and thanks, Clint, it means a lot, you listening to me."

"You would have done the same."

Curiosity was eating away at Elaina, but she dared not open old wounds, especially with Clint.

Hours later the five Avengers and Elaina stood at the back of the bridge looking around awkwardly.

"Anyone know why we're here?" Tony asked in a feeble attempt to break the silence.

The other five shook their heads without another word which seemed to amuse Tony. Elaina had a feeling it had something to do with the new mission, but with Fury she could never be sure. Minutes later, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D walked in the middle of their group without a single hint as to why they were there.

"You all know why you're here," Fury said.

"Uh...actually we don't," Tony said after looking around at everyone standing there.

Fury gave an accusing look at the billionaire before Clint cut in.

"He's telling the truth, sir," Clint said casting a side-glance at Fury.

The Director's eyes fell on Elaina, making her shift uncomfortably.

"You didn't tell them, Miss Barton?" Fury asked.

"I wasn't aware I was supposed to, sir, I apologize."

That made her feel horrible that she had actually failed to obey indirect orders when those were always the easiest for her to follow.

"Don't worry too much about it, we're here now," Fury said to Elaina before turning to the rest standing there.

"What Miss Barton was going to tell you was that we found the good Doctor a couple days ago. In case you hadn't noticed, we are now heading inland, toward New Mexico, but we can't take the carrier all the way in. I'm going to need Stark, Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers, and both Agents Barton on this job."

Elaina and Clint both gave short scoffs at his abbreviation of their names.

"Our objective, Director?" Steve asked.

"Your objective is to bring back that psychotic excuse of a scientist so he knows who he's been testing the patience of."

Elaina could tell how much Fury was becoming frustrated with trying to keep up with Durov and she didn't blame him, it wasn't an easy task for anyone. In a few hours it wouldn't matter anyway, Elaina would make sure he didn't see the light of day until he was a crippled old man. Her aged, bitter hatred for him was progressively rising up once again inside her after lying dormant for years. Soon, old wounds would be reopened, old wars would be waged again, and the Avengers would be caught in the crossfire; no one was escaping New Mexico unscathed.

**A/N: my attempt at foreshadowing/cliff hanger haven't done one in a while so little rusty on that. Anyway hope you enjoyed, hope it answered some questions you guys had. And just a little more info for you guys: I do not have a sibling, didn't ever long for one anyway..so why do I give most my characters siblings? I...haven't...a clue. Anywho, since it is now winter break I am going to have more time to type so more chapters should come soon. O and another thing: what I did with Hawkeye and Elaina, yes a little cheesy, but I wanted her to tell him something about her past and put some comic book references in there so that's the only way I could, I am not proud of that, but thats how it turned out. Point being, no need to inform me of it I already know haha :)**


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